The Indiana Pacers defeated the New York Knicks 138-135 in overtime to take Game 1 at Madison Square Garden.
With the Pacers coming back from down 14 points with 3:44 left in the game, Tyrese Haliburton hit a buzzer-beating shot to send the game to overtime.
“I felt like it got stuck up there though,” said Haliburton, who finished with 31 points, after the win. “But it felt good when it left my hand.”
With the Pacers down two, Haliburton thought he won the game with a three pointer before video review confirmed that his shot was a two-point field goal.
Haliburton initially celebrated with a choke signal that called back to Reggie Miller’s gesture to Spike Lee in 1994.
“I wasn’t like plotting on it or anything,” said Haliburton about the gesture. “Everybody wanted me to do it last year at some point, but it’s got to feel right. It felt right at the time — well, if I would’ve known it was a two, I would not have done it. So I think I might’ve wasted it.”
The Knicks win probability peaked at 99.8% when they were up 14 late in the fourth quarter, according to ESPN Research.
Teams that trailed by nine or more points with under a minute left in the fourth quarter or overtime of the playoffs were 0-1,414 since 1998 before Wednesday’s Game 1, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
Rick Carlisle said that there was still a lot of series left to play.
“It’s a long series,” Carlisle said. “We’re not going to get too excited about this. We’ve got things to clean up. They got things to clean up. Game 2 is going to be another war.”